PHYSICS 101-102

Homework Assignment #6 October 24, 2005

Understanding the Concepts

8.6. You have two masses, labelled 1 and 2, moving in space, and their momenta are equal

r r
and opposite, p1 + p 2 = 0. Pick out the statements that are necessarily true.

(a) The two masses are going to collide.

(b) The masses could be moving in two planes that are parallel to one another.

(c) The masses are moving parallel to one another but not necessarily along the same

line.

(d) The masses are moving along the same line.

8.7.The center of mass of a championship-level high jumper passes below the bar even
though the jumper passes above the bar. How is this possible?

8.17 An amusing experiment involves the use of a golf ball (or any other small, light ball)
and a large ball. If you keep the large ball stationary on the ground and drop the small ball
onto it, the small ball will bounce back to almost the height from which you dropped it.
If, however, you take both balls and, holding the smaller ball just above the larger one,
drop them together, you will find that the small ball might hit the ceiling with some force!
Try this and explain what is going on.

If you have the misfortune to be in an automobile collision, you are better off in a
8.18.
more massive car (all other things being equal). Why?

8.21. A closed railroad car is at rest on a flat stretch of track. A cannon located inside the
car at the front end points to the rear. What is the motion of the railroad car when the
cannon is fired and the shell is absorbed by the rear wall?

8.24. Suppose two identical billiard balls moving with equal and opposite velocities
along a line have a head-on collision. How will this look to an observer moving with a
uniform velocity equal to that of one of the billiard balls?

Solve yourself problems

8.13. (I) A fire rescue unit uses a tightly woven net to catch an 80-kg person who jumps
out of a burning building from a height of 11 m. What is the impulse transmitted to the
net? If the net sinks 70 cm as it slows down the jumper, what is the average force exerted
on the jumper by the net?

8.32. (II) An 241 Am nucleus at rest emits an alpha particle (a 4 He nucleus). The energy
released during the process is 6 MeV = 9.6 1013 J. (a) What are the speeds of the alpha
particle and the remaining 237 Np nucleus? (b) What is the kinetic energy of the 237 Np
nucleus? (The masses of the nuclei may be taken to be 241m0 , 4.0m0 , and 237m0 ,
. 10 27 kg. )
respectively, where m0 = 166

8.48. (I) Suppose there are two billiard balls of equal mass; one is at rest and one is
moving with a speed of 35 . m s . They collide elastically. After the collision, one of the two
balls is measured to be moving with speed 2.3 m s . What is the speed of the other ball?

8.61. (II) A mallet forms a symmetric T-shape. The top of the T is a uniform iron block
of mass 4.0 kg. The wooden handle is uniform, 1.2 m long, and has a mass of 1.8 kg.
Where is the mallets center of mass? (See the hint in Problem 60.)

8.83. (II) A cannon of mass 800 kg shoots a 5-kg projectile at an angle of 35 from the
horizontal. The projectile has an initial speed of 800 m s. The cannon is on wheels. (a)
Draw a diagram showing the momentum vectors. (b) With what velocity does the cannon
recoil along the horizontal ground? (c) What happens to the recoiling cannons
component of momentum perpendicular to the ground?

8.85. (II) Two masses slide without friction down the sides of a hemispherical bowl.
They each start with zero velocity at the lip, which is a height h above the bottom. They
move in opposite directions and collide elastically at the bottom of the bowl. Suppose that
the masses are m and M, respectively, with m < M . (a) By how much will the lighter mass
overshoot the lip after the collision? (b) How high will the masses move if they coalesce
on contact?

Hand-in Problems
8.5. (II) A 7-kg rifle is used to fire a 10-g bullet that travels with a speed of 700 m s.
(a) What is the speed of recoil of the rifle? (b) How much energy does it transmit to the
shoulder of the person using the rifle as it stops?

8.33. (II) In a ballistic pendulum, a bullet of mass m and speed v embeds in a block of
mass M suspended by a string (Fig. 836). The block and bullet, of total mass m + M , then
move as a pendulum and the maximum height h that it reaches can easily be measured.
This apparatus can be used to measure the speed of the bullet. (a) What fraction of the
bullets kinetic energy is lost in the collision? (b) Give a formula for measuring v in
terms of m, M, g, and h.
8.37. (I) On an air track, a 0.4-kg mass m1 moves at 3.0 m s in the positive direction. It
approaches a stationary mass m2 of 0.8 kg. They collide and, after the collision, the
velocity of mass m2 is 16 . m s in the positive direction. (a) What is the velocity of mass m1
after the collision? (b) Is this collision elastic or inelastic? If the latter, what percentage of
the maximum possible kinetic energy loss occurs?

8.53. (II) In a court hearing, a police expert reconstructs an accident in the following
way (Fig. 840): A sports car of mass m1 = 1000 kg collided with a parked pickup truck of
mass m2 = 1500 kg. From the skid marks, it is estimated that the speed of the pickup
immediately after the collision was 216 . m s at an angle of 33.7 with the direction of the
road. The sports car left a mark at an angle of 60 with the road but did not stop, leaving
the scene badly damaged. Can the expert determine from these data if the sports car was
speeding and its driver fully responsible?

8.89. (II) A sphere of styrofoam has radius R. A cavity of radius R 2 centered a

distance R 2 directly above the center of the sphere is hollowed out and filled with a
solid material of density five times the density of styrofoam (Fig. 843). Where is the
center of mass of the new sphere?